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Originally written by SprungSpring:

I'm sure you can remember the more proficient posters (TM and Alo mainly). If you have been lurking but not posting, ignore the rest of this post.

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Originally written by Smoked Salmon:

Coal, is a highly profitably extractive substance due to the large volume of coal to tailings. It also tends to exist near the surface and reclamation is easily accomplished since there are no toxic byproducts from mining.
On the other hand, trace and precious metal mining, such as found in Montana, is extremely dangerous to the environment. First let me say it is also the least likely to make you rich, compared to coal or oil. Tailing to ore ratios are on the order of 400:1 for copper mining and 5,000,000:1 for gold mines. So there are huge amounts of toxic waste materials. As rain and melted snow perc through that waste, out leaches all those heavy metals that weren't wanted by the mining company. Of course the ore is also processed on site, typically with cyanide, which stays in the waste ore in a pit. Forever.
So not to point fingers, as no one here (I assume) is responsible for the Anaconda Mine or was a director of Pegasus Gold, but environmental damage can be very real and insidious. It causes long-term (read 20,000 years) damages to the surrounding area and inhabitants.
I know I wouldn't want to live downstream from an abandoned heap-leach mine. It'd make me go dumb.
:eek: :eek: :confused:

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